For this blog assignment I chose the topic of stem cells to
write about. I have heard a lot of mixed views on stem cells and the research involved
in studying them and the benefits they could have in fighting and curing
disease. As anyone today could tell you, stem cells are bad because they come
from killing babies. If this was not the actual case its more than I would have
known considering no one could talk about stem cells for more than two seconds
without someone making that tired point. I did a little research and ended up
at the Mayo Clinic’s website, reading an article about this particular controversy.
The article was simple and informative. They seemed to avoid any complicated
medical vocabulary so the less informed reader could still take something from
the article. Since the doctors behind the article would most likely want to see
their research advanced, I would guess that they want more people to know more
about stem cells. This being considered, they remained emotionally distant from
their topic and relied more on the facts they were presenting to sway their
audience. This was probably wise seeing how the opposing side would be standing
on the more sympathetic platform. As I read the article it went on to simply
explain where stem cells come from and all of the benefits they could hypothetically
present to disease control and prevention. I did notice that they listed all of
the nice and miraculous things stem cells could do before they were forced to
remind people where they come from. When I read this article I would have to
say that it could not have really swayed my opinion, mainly because it was
already leaning in that direction. It did affirm many things I had suspected
and I certainly agreed with everything they had to say. It blew my mind that
stem cells have the potential to cure almost every major disease plaguing our
nation including spinal cord injuries, type 1 diabetes, Parkinson's disease,
Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, stroke, burns, many forms of cancer and
osteoarthritis. The surprising thing that most people do not know is
that this research material is just the trash from fertility clinics.
Scott, we had to do research on Stem Cell Research in my biology class last year. Like you said, there were many articles that screamed about killing babies. However, there is a lot more to it than that.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that the doctors you spoke about remained emotionally unattached from their paper. That would be hard to do when you are so passionate about the topic.
I think the point need to be made in this article that while yes these are from deceased babies, it does not mean that these babies were killed on purpose. I think stem cells will be making a lot of progress over the next 20 or so years, and I'm glad that you found an article that was simple to understand.
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